The Planning Schools (3)

Abstract

the United States varied threads of planning thought and action have developed from many and often unsuspected quarters in the past fifty years. The present stress and strain within the planning profession can hardly be understood or charitably viewed without some acquaintance with the widening circle of interested participants in city and regional planning, and particularly with the sources of the original civic impetus towards facing the mounting problems of our cities and regions. The first professional courses in city planning at Harvard coincided historically with the publication of Burnham's famous plan of Chicago of 1909. This early training reflected also the then dominant architectural approach to these problems. These men, though since derided by many as advocates of a ' city beautiful/ were truly pioneers in developing the idea of the city as a total organism whose ills required the unselfish attention of the citizen who could place the interest of the community above his own. This tendency to decry some of the achievements of these pioneers reflects a delayed awareness of the physical problems among social and political scientists who were in their own way vigorously attacking the squalor and mismanagement of our cities.